Times article on academia

[SuperLoudPoppingAction]

www.timeshighereducation.com/depth/researchers-are-wounded-academias-gender-wars

Does anyone have a share token?

I'm of the same mind @flyingbuttress43

This is the sort of nonsense that made me realise that modern feminism is not for me:
thefword.org.uk/our-position/the_f-word_bloggers_position_o/

The most shocking thing in the article is the acceptance of those death threats etc because it would be intellectually uncomfortable to do anything else.

Yes. The cowardice is remarkable. And bear in mind that academics, more than anyone, should understand the importance of freedom of thought, and should be aware (probably are aware) of what happens when free thought is suppressed. Yet they still do nothing.

From the article:

A number of genderist academics recognised that “more nuanced, more honest, self-aware conversations [should] take place” – although strictly among genderists only and in private spaces, since, in public, “you’ve got to be for your team and toe the party line”, one education scholar explained.

Since when was academic inquiry a team sport?

I was just idly checking LOJ's twitter feed to see if he'd commented on the LGBA case (not that I could see). There a tweet thread from a female academic. She says she was approached by someone about an article. She claims the interview took her through all the nasty things and threats GC people have said, but provides no examples. She says this was all quite traumatic and triggering but decided against making any sort of complaint, but insisted on anonymity in the article. Then apologises for being involved.

Obviously, no one should be subject to threats and intimidation. Which is why I'm mentioning no names, don't want to stir the wrath of MN!

I don't know if the article being referred to is this one (especially as I still can't read it). Perhaps we've got another one to look forward to!

This is extremely unfair @RoyalCorgi Female (mostly) academics all over the country are doing things. But we’re often doing things quietly, incrementally.

If you’ve ever had your job threatened because of your beliefs, as I have, then I hope you would understand that sometimes we do what we can, working through small steps, or behind the scenes.

I steadfastly teach history asa feminist and about women’s work. I discuss with students the difference at a structural level between sex (biological) and gender roles and stereotypes (historically and culturally specific).

I’m committed in my work to support young women and female colleagues. I use about 10% of my salary to garden and support feminist causes. There are thousands of us doing this. just because this isn’t front page news, doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

Come and chat to us at FILIA in October.

I was just idly checking LOJ's twitter feed to see if he'd commented on the LGBA case (not that I could see)

Oh there has been quite the storm 😂

He didn't comment directly on LGBA but he's been responding to debate about whether it's transphobic for lesbians to exclude TW from their dating pool. The ensuing shit storm has been wonderful.

Off topic, but worth taking a look

But they've got a 'denial of victim' mentality going on. Those GC feminists deserve it as they are waging genocide on trans people. They've completely made this accusation up. They don't even bother reading what we saw. Just as the Genderists in the LBG court case have not read the Cass Review.

How can they be so intellectual self deceiving and dishonest? How did people with some a contempt for critical inquiry get into academia? When and why did academia get so intentionally myopic?

Genderist academics reported personally imposing bans from academic networks and events, along with language policing of colleagues as well as students. “If students write ‘female’ in their essay, I’ll cross it out”, a sociologist told me, because “what matters is gender [identity]”

Half way through the article. I knew the stuff preceding but this genuinely shocked me.

We may well be.

But these people are teaching students on this basis and preventing others who might want to have the hard discussions from
doing so.

It’s very dangerous when they’re in denial of the reality of (threats of and actually murder and other horrors because it doesn’t suit how they’ve lined up the victims and oppressors.

I mean that sociologist is an academic. Where is her/ his data that gender is what correlates with the phenomena under study? And correlates better than sex? There is overwhelming evidence that sex is a predictive variable for a whole host of phenomena. So they must have pretty overwhelming evidence for the predictive power of gender to actually be correcting a student's work. Because its wholly unprofessional to be correcting an accurate statement from a student on the basis of ideology.

I have some sympathy for ordinary academics here. People can and do lose their jobs over this shit. Academia is insecure enough without playing with these grenades.

Perhaps that's why it's been so easily captured. Or part of it.

Management on the other hand are a disgrace for allowing this to unfold. They had a duty to protect their institutions as bastions of free speech and intelligent debate. They fired that under the bus rather than stand up to the vile bullies. What an appalling legacy.

It’s interesting that the response from people who’ve discovered that the article doesn’t present them as the good guys is to make lots of accusations against the researcher.

The analysis didn’t support my position so I will apologise to the trans community for participating and claim the process was traumatic and unacceptable.

These are social science/humanities scholars. If they had been concerned about the conduct of research in which they’d participated, they knew fine well how to complain and seek redress.

The power relations of interviewing elites (and they ARE elites) are not the same as for interviewing people who don’t understand the process and know
how to hold their own in a debate/challenge things they disagree with.

It’s fascinating that they stayed silent about this adult, traumatising, irresponsible research practice right up until the point at which they discovered the analysis didn’t match the narrative they wanted to present. And then took to twitter to complain.

Hm.

'I apologise to the trans community for participating in this research, which is going to cause damage, and for not raising my concerns at the time. I made a huge mistake and I am sorry. I will not be so trusting in future and share this partly to alert others to take good care.'

Alison Phipps

twitter.com/alisonphipps/status/1570691031846490114

Yeah, 'threats and abuse from the gc' but it's the trans allies they actually seem afraid of.

Oh, I see you were careful about not naming the academic, cake, sorry, I missed all those posts! I thought this was a pretty public statement, amplified by wee OJ.

Over abundance of caution, she put it out there so I rather think I was overdoing it.

I've not be able to read the article, is there anything in it about gc threats?

It apparently has traction in America. We can't be too far behind.

Note this poor victim of the dreadful postdoctoral research fellow interviewing her about her own research topic! is a senior academic. Self described as a ‘renowned professor’ on twitter.

But somehow couldn’t challenge what she considered poor - and traumatising - research practice or challenge things she disagreed with. Nor could she email a PI/ethics chair/HoD afterwards to outline her concerns about the conduct of a very junior academic.

How does she manage to supervise PhD students, if she can’t cope in an interview about her own professional practices from someone much less experienced and institutionally powerful? Presumably she doesn’t submit articles for any kind of meaningful peer review where people
might challenge something.

She’s annoyed because her book is quoted in the article. But no one would have known she was a participant of she hadn’t flagellated on twitter.

Pretty please could you link? I'm struggling to find the discussion.

It’s in LOJ’a twitter feed. Very near the top.

I'm struggling to find it because I'm on a Twitter break and can't scroll down without being forced to log back in. Never mind not reading it will just have to be part of my detox! :D

It continues to be a matter of astonishment that Alison Phipps ever managed to rise beyond the position of road sweeper, let alone rise to the position of professor. Along with Sally Hines, she provides a good example of just how broken academia is, both intellectually and morally.

twitter.com/hjoycegender/status/1570469218080165889?s=21&t=-21MvvxmaPH_le3hcuVUPA

I'm not sure if this will work, but it culminates in this staggeringly hypocritical tweet, for which he was enthusiastically taken to task.

As someone else put it. TRA in the tweets, TERF in the sheets. 🤣

I found this thread on OJ's twitter, where a person called Conor calls lesbians 'genital obsessed freaks'.

twitter.com/conormichael01/status/1570358933210136585

I can't see anything. There is this claim:

'some interviewees, including those working on violence against women, would nonetheless still equivocate. As one sociologist put it: “My priority are the people who are being harmed by this debate, who I perceive to be trans people.”'

And several interviewees talking about their fears of expressing any opinions that might be construed as 'gender critical' or 'terfy'.